Huerta Stresses FAA’s Authority to Integrate, Enforce UAS Operations



By Danielle Lucey



Today, at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Procurement Council Meeting, Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta reinforced his agency’s role in regulating the integration of unmanned aircraft and hinted that some commercial uses of the systems could come sooner than expected. 



He said the FAA is working to debunk a lot of myths related to unmanned aircraft, including the argument that they do not fall under the definition of aircraft. 



“Well the truth is, whether it’s being used for recreational, hobby, business or commercial purposes, unmanned aircraft fall clearly under the definition of aircraft in U.S. law.” 



Another myth is that the FAA doesn’t have the jurisdiction to regulate unmanned aircraft. 



“Actually, all civil aircraft are subject to FAA regulation, and how high you fly does not carve out an exception,” he said. He said he understands how some believe that commercial operation below 400 feet over private property is somehow exempt, “but that’s just not the case.”



Huerta said he could not comment at length regarding the agency’s appeal last week of the Huerta v. Pirker case, where a National Transportation Safety Board judge threw out the FAA’s attempt to fine what the agency deemed illegal UAS use by a filmmaker in 2011, prior to the FAA reauthorization in 2012 that mandated the integration of unmanned aircraft into the National Airspace System.



“Because it is under appeal, I can’t say much,” he said, but he says the FAA believes the operator was flying “carelessly and recklessly.” He reiterated that because it is under appeal, the enforcement against the commercial use of UAS stays the same. “So at this point, nothing has changed.”



Huerta acknowledged the many players that are chomping at the bit to use UAS in commercial and civil ways, like Amazon for package delivery or Google for tracking poachers. 



“When I took this job, I never thought a Christmas gift from Brookstone could prove so provocative,” he said, adding that unmanned aircraft are the “most dynamic growth sector in the aviation industry.”



“Commercial unmanned aircraft operations are not banned, but they are limited,” he said, pointing to the Insitu ScanEagle and AeroVironment’s Puma in the Arctic as legal uses. He said that the FAA will take interim steps to approve limited commercial use of unmanned aircraft in highly controlled environments, like on movie and television sets. In these scenarios, the pilots must be certified and conditions on the ground must be safe, he said. 



Huerta said that using unmanned systems for agriculture in the United States offers unique complications that are not true for countries like Japan, where the practice is commonplace. Rural areas where agricultural UAS uses would occur are also the areas with the most general aviation, where visual flight rules reign. Ensuring a proper sense-and-avoid solution will be key to integrating rural unmanned commercial opportunities, he said.



Huerta would not make any specific comments on the long-delayed regulations surrounding small unmanned aircraft, only saying that a ruling would come out sometime in 2014. Rulemaking is a deliberate and measured process, he said. “It sometimes takes longer than any of us would like, and that’s certainly the case with me.”